Congress granted too much independence to the independent accounting oversight board it created in the wake of the Enron fiasco, the Supreme Court ruled today.
However, these measures do have the advantage of being independent of accounting rules, so they can be used to compare companies in different industries and countries.
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As a member of management and a member of the family that owns Amerco, Mark Shoen was not independent under the accounting rules.
The IGT 2010 proxy goes on to say that the Audit Committee conducted a competitive process to select an independent registered public accounting firm for the 2011 fiscal year.
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It would have at least six independent members and just three accounting professionals.
It also said it had commissioned an independent audit by one of the "big four accounting firms".
The accounting board was designed to be fully independent and thus not subject to political pressure.
This is not to say that there is anything dodgy going on or that the accounting practices would not be supported by independent organisations or followed by other countries.
The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), an independent agency of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) created by SOx, develops those auditing standards and regulates external auditors of public companies.
Zynga, Facebook and Groupon all use an independent auditor that is simultaneously inventing the rules for social media accounting.
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The independent external auditor is a licensed professional who works for a public accounting firm and performs an audit of the financial statements of a company, government, individual, or any other legal entity or organization.
Further, why, out of all the accounting firms in the world, did the pension choose an accountant that was not independent?
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